They stepped into a room which was very much the way the Room of Requirement might be if the Room of Requirement could ever be used for sexual escapades – which, of course, it could not. Hogwarts was very much geared towards preventing students from having sex, and therefore, the room was not expected to regard two lustful teenagers in search of a trysting spot a real "requirement." But had it been able to transform into a trysting spot, it would have looked very much like Voldemort's guest bedroom – which was quite nice indeed.

Hermione felt that it had at least somewhat aroused Professor Snape. He wrapped his arms around Hermione's waist – tightly. So tightly, in fact that she could bearly breathe. But she really, really didn't want to say anything because that seemed on par with puncturing a child's balloon with a knitting needle – and Hermione did not regard herself as a puncturer of metaphorical balloons. Meanwhile Severus was grasping her as though he were attempting to perform the Heimlich maneuver.

It wasn't that he necessarily wanted to grasp her in such a way. It was just that, at that moment - with her tender young buttocks pressing against his manhood - a single thought resonated in his mind. And that thought was 'I've forgotten my line.' He had. It was a horrible dilemma. He thought maybe he should improvise.

"I want this," he said.

"My belly?" she replied.

"You, I mean. Dammit, you, that's it, you. Darling, I want you."

"What?"

"I must, I must have you. Or I shall surely die."

"There's really no need to be quite so melodramatic about things."

"Our love is like a wild happy pony on the plains, eating us. I mean our lust, or the hay of our lust. Yes, our love is a pony which eats the hay of our lust."

"Professor Snape, are you sure you're quite able to do this?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you're not talking in a way that indicates you are very focused on the task at hand. I don't know what you're trying to get at. Really, I'd just thought it might be a mutually enjoyable experience if we were to go to bed together."

"That's what I thought, too!"

"So why all the flowery language? I don't like dwelling in the land of the euphemistically indirect."

"I was trying to be charming and romantic. I wanted to sweep you off your feet and show you a certain modicum of affection."

"Oh. In that case, why didn't you just say, 'Hermione, would you like to spend the night?'"

"Well, for one thing, I would never have said Hermione. I would have said, 'Miss Granger would you like to spend the night?' I was, however, dissuaded by Voldemort who felt a different kind of approach needed to be taken. An approach, dare I say it, more tender and romantic in feeling."

"I suppose tender romantic feelings are very indirect then. I don't particularly care for that approach. It seems silly."

"Quite so."

"Mmm."

"Should we get down to things then?" enquired Snape, rolling up the sleeves on his robes with the dedication of a farmer about to plow a field.

Hermione looked flustered for a second. She sat on the side of the bed, rigid and motionless. She too had forgotten her lines. Then suddenly, with a crazed look in her eyes, she flew at him.

"So many buttons!" she exclaimed. She grabbed his robe and ripped it apart with the mighty strength of a Hippogriff, or other, equally strong beast. Buttons flew everywhere, temporarily blinding Professor Snape in the eye.

"What the devil are you doing?" he asked her.

"I was ripping off your robe in an uninhibited display of passion," she replied.

"These were my best robes."

"Oh."

"I'm quite serious Miss Granger, they're my favorite pair. I spent an enormous amount of money on them. Please, don't ever do that again."

"I'm sorry. I'm a bad girl. Do I need to be punished?" she enquired hopefully.

"No, but you'll probably need to pay to have my clothing repaired."

"Oh, I thought maybe you'd want to spank me."

"I would never be that cliché."

"I was kind of counting on it."

"That's peculiar, Miss Granger. It's not something I feel entirely comfortable doing. In fact, I'd feel very uncomfortable doing it as it would remind me of the extreme age difference between the two of us, and that I'm nearly old enough to be your father."

"Only just. And I'm quite sure you could take him on in a fight, if it were ever to come to that. Not that it would. Not that, if he were to find out that a Potion's Professor at boarding school had been bedding his little princess, he would come after you with a shotgun. No, not at all."

"The thought never crossed my mind."

"Good. Then spank my bottom."

"There appears to be a logical gap between those two statements."

"I don't think so."

"Oh. Well."

"Give it a go." She bent over the bed obligingly. Severus lifted his hand, feeling squeamish. He brought his hand down, making a great effort not to think about what he was doing and how uncomfortable he felt. Instead he thought about potion recipes. Then his attention to turned to actual writing. And then he wondered who had been leaving the love letters dripping with funny smelling perfume around his room. Little did he know that that wasn't perfume at all, it was slime. The letters were sent from Trevor the Tapeworm, who had begun creeping out of his jar each night, covering his body with colorful potions ingredients and squirming about in precise, rhythmic motions to form words on discarded pieces of paper. While human/tapeworm relationships may not have always been an easy pairing, it was worth noting that Trevor the Tapeworm would never ever have asked Severus Snape to smack his bottom. Because Trevor the Tapeworm did not have one. He was a tapeworm.

"Why are you being so mindless and repetitive about this?"

"What?"

"I thought this was going to be really hot. This isn't hot."

"Hot?"

"You know. Hot. Arousing."

"Ah. Well, I've already voiced my discomfort with the procedure, which may be a factor in the lack of hotness."

"Maybe if you took off your clothes? Or if I took off mine. Or better, if you took off mine for me?"

"I could do that," he tried to sound cavalier about the whole thing. In actuality, it had been some time since he'd removed a woman's clothes, barring that one, drunken encounter with Hooch.

So he approached her with a slight nervousness. It wasn't, after all, as though she were wearing a jumpsuit that could just slide off. There were ribbons involved here. Laces. Intricate laces. Hundreds of them, really. Which, as it turned out, were all very tightly bound and really nearly impossible to undo.

"Here, let me help," said Hermione.

"Absolutely not."

"I really think this would go much better if you could just let me assist."

"I believe I'm quite capable of handling this."

"Fine, then." Hermione realized with a certain blinding flash of insight that she was sulking in the midst of her first sexual encounter. She had never considered the possibility that there would be anything to sulk about during sex. She vowed to savor the sensual sensation of Professor Snape removing her dress. And she did so, for approximately the next three minutes, at which point Professor Snape announced,

"Miss Granger, you seem to be stuck." And so she was. The vast majority of the dress seemed caught, half beneath her armpit and half over her collarbone. She was naked at the waist with her entire dress stuck over her head. It was not hot. It wasn't even lukewarm. It was stupid, and chilly. She wished she'd handled it herself, and she wished he hadn't told her she was stuck as though it were her fault. But all she said was, "Umm." It was hard to be too eloquent with a dress stuck over her head.

Finally, with a great wiggling she stood before him, naked and exposed.

Severus moved forward and cupped her breasts. "Beautiful," thought Hermione, "this is the point where he sucks in his breath admiringly and says 'beautiful.'"

"You have nice breasts," said Snape. This somehow seemed breathtakingly less poignant than declaring them to be "beautiful."

"Thanks," replied Hermione. Then she realized she was supposed to have a moment of timid insecurity wherein she revealed that she was young and unsure of her own blossoming sexuality, at which point Snape would gently reassure her. "I mean, I think they're too small."

"Oh," replied Snape, who didn't know the rules and formalities of this exchange, "well, I guess they are kind of petit."

"What?"

"But not necessarily in a negative way, Miss Granger."

"How can that be positive?"

"Women with large breasts remind me of cows."

"That's a horrible indictment of buxom women."

"I didn't actually mean it. I was just trying to remedy the social gaff. Could we talk about this later? I assure you, I really do like your breasts."

"Well, good. Maybe you could undress now?"

"Certainly," replied Snape, pulling his dress robe over his head, to reveal that he was also naked. She stared down at his exposed manhood.

"I know," stated Snape rather smugly, "you've never seen one so large before."

"I've never seen one before, period," replied Hermione before breaking into a fit of giggles. "My God," she exclaimed, "it's the most ridiculous looking thing I've ever seen. Look at how silly it is just waving there."

"I'm glad you're not frightened," declared Snape. Snape was lying. He would have preferred it if she had been frightened. No man particularly liked it when you laughed hysterically at his manhood.

"Is it large?"

"Huge."

"I don't believe you."

"How could you possibly not believe me? Don't I seem like the sort of man who'd have an enormous manhood?"

"Well, I don't have any basis for comparison. Hold on, there's a measuring tape!" Hermione lunged over to the bedside table, and returned with a ruler.

"What are you doing, you silly girl?"

"Silly girl! Now see, that's precisely what I meant, Professor Snape. That's what you ought to have said while you were spanking me."

"That hasn't answered my question you… silly girl."

"Ooh! It gives me shivers when you say that. I was going to measure it."

"What?"

"It. You know, it."

"Miss Granger, are you aware that this is most unorthodox?"

"Oh, don't be silly. Just lie there for a minute."

"I most certainly will not."

"Please Professor Snape; don't make this more difficult than it needs to be."

"I'm not making this anything more than it needs to be as this is completely unnecessary."

She wrestled him down and proceeded to measure him with a concentration and precision she would usually only exhibit in her class work. Trevor the Tapeworm would never have done that, either.

"Five inches. From what I've heard, that's more or less average. I mean I'm not going to go away horrified, but I really don't think you have any right to advertise it as 'huge.' Especially to young girls who wouldn't know any better."

"Miss Granger, this has been a fiasco. It is decidedly not arousing at all. I'm going to get dressed and leave."

"Oh no, please don't. Come on, I'm sure we can work this out. If you still want to, maybe we could just skip directly to the actual sleeping together part? If you still want to, I mean, I'm not going to pressure you. Although sometimes no means yes. Or so I've read in romance novels. Though I think that technically constitutes rape in real life. But I'm getting away from myself. Professor Snape, do you think we could do it now?"

"That would be fine."

Professor Snape came over to her side of the bed. He stared deeply into her eyes. He lowered his manly, manly torso over her body, whereupon she declared,

"I was just thinking, wouldn't it be great if I were to get pregnant?"

"No. It would not be "great." Or it would only be great if you mean great in the sense that getting Avada Kedavra'ed is "great."

"But you and I would develop a kind of maternal and paternal instinct, and it would be a charming child, most likely a female with curly black hair who would end up in Ravenclaw."

"If you got pregnant, there are potions to remedy that."

"You mean abort it?"

"I wouldn't use that term precisely, but we do have potions to heal broken bones. I know you come from a muggle background but I trust you understood that there would be potions for other unfortunate mishaps. Of course, they're much less pleasant and more emotionally distressing than just using a simpler form of contraceptive, but they are available. If you feel strongly, I suppose we could also consider adoption, but it would be nearly impossible for you to pursue any of your long term goals with a child in tow. You are, after all, seventeen. And using it as a romantic plot device is rather sickening, frankly, Miss Granger. A child is not a nifty handbag, nor is it a kind of glue used to cement couples together."

"Oh," said Hermione, "well in that case, it's a good thing I took elementary precautions and brought contraceptives."

"Good. Because to have done otherwise would have been just breathtakingly idiotic. I mean, what kind of girl really thinks it's charming and delightful to get pregnant at seventeen? I personally, would never have even considered this without protection."

"I think you've made your point Professor Snape."

"I'm glad."

"Can we continue?"

"Umm…"

"Umm?"

"Just give me a moment. The pregnancy talk caused my genitals to shrivel up and retreat into my kidney."

"Literally?"

"No, not literally Miss Granger."

"Is there anything I could do?" She batted her eyelashes provocatively.

"Well perhaps if you…"

"If I…"

"If you were to put it in your mouth."

"Oh. Alright."

She leaned over and proceeded to take it in her mouth and suck on it somewhat gently. It really wasn't nearly as bad as she'd expected. She couldn't see why some women disliked it, until Snape began thrusting away. At which point, she gagged. And involuntarily bit down, slightly. Snape screamed. About an hour later, they had recovered from the mutual trauma enough to give it another go.

In an ideal world, or in a romance novel, their second try would have been perfect. He would have slipped between her legs like butter, and she would have been transported to a nether realm of sexual ecstasy. It didn't work like that, of course. There was a great deal of maneuvering involved for both parties, there was one notable moment when Hermione considered balking on the whole issue. And after it was all over, when Severus curled up against her, she thought what so many recently deflowered young women before her had thought, and shook her head and quietly murmured "that's it? That's what everybody makes such a fuss over?" And she looked down at her red dress lying in a crumpled heap on the floor, and thought solemnly that life wasn't like a romance novel at all. And at that moment, Snape rolled over blearily and remarked to her, "I think you're wonderful, Miss Granger." And she decided that even if her life wasn't a romance novel, and even if sex was amazingly anticlimactic, things weren't really so bad after all.

Meanwhile, in another bedroom down the hall, Voldemort gently stroked Bellatrix's waist and sighed, "Darling, darling, I want you." And Bellatrix replied, "Oh yes, darling, yes!" Because for some people, life really is a romance novel. After all, when you go through life as a disfigured snake-man and a mentally unstable murderess, the universe is required to demonstrate occasional tokens of mercy.